AnnMarie Eldon

If only

If only wings
could fly you
with blood-tender tinglings
across undeniable oceans’ thew.

Could fly you
transubstantiate
across undeniable oceans. Thew
and revenge musculature; exculpate,

transubstantiate
each tear.
And revenge muscualture. Exculpate
fear.

Each tear
and revenge, musculature. Exculpate
fear
by bite, by rip, by cunt bait.

And revenge: musculature. Exculpate
what necrolustful ravages bear.
By bite, by rip, by cunt bait
we dare.

What necrolustful ravages we bear
down graves wherein musked hunger.
We dare
toss. Wave. Weft death à Dieu va

down graves wherein musked hunger
drowns not fitful self. Appeasement.
Toss. Wave. Weft death à Dieu va.
My love, cum; though terror

drowns not fitful self appeasement,
we swim through devil bone
my love. Come, though terror,
defy scissable flesh. Alone,

we swim through devil bone
to drown by dream-meet.
Defy scissable flesh.

                     Alone
we would cleat
                    to drown by dream-meet.

With blood-tender tinglings
we would cleat.

If only wings.

181˚

Masses displaced. There
somebodies always on

the move. To manipulate today’s headline
means taking up that smell refugee-en masse smell. Taking it

up. Enough is feed to children.
Fix the boy’s bike lights on. Screw. Screw. Every-

    needs a place. Sending the one-eyed
hooked bully to hell, thinking it
may well get me a fatwa

smell which can never quite be encapsulated.
A crowd I join. I

turn away. Cook. I
never read recipes. My hands’ resort flour. A factoid may reconcile Ishmael and Isaac.

Blood blooms from foetid to umbilical
in my hope womb. Turn. Spit and patter down. There –

a strange trig. to the Trintity
is. Makes numbers nonsense.

found body parts I

p 730:
The muscles of the perinæum
in the female are, the
Sphincter vaginæ.
Compressor urethræ.
Erector clitoridis.
Sphincter ani.
Transversus perinæi.
Levator ani.
Coccygeus.

The Sphincter Vaginæi surrounds
the orifice of the vagina
and is analogous to the
Accelerator urinæ in the male.

It is attached, posteriorily,
to the central tendon
of the perinæum,
where it blends
with the Sphincter ani.

Its fibres pass forwards on
each side of the vagina,
to be inserted into
the corpora cavernosa
and body of the clitoris.

The Erector Clitoridis resembles
the Erector penis
in the male, but
is smaller
than
it.

The Transversus Perinœi is
inserted into the side of
the Sphincter vaginæi,
and the Levator ani
into the side of
the vagina.

The other muscles are
precisely similar
to those in the male.

pp. 740 – 768 index

p. 769 errata:
Page 35, line 14 from bottom, for medulla oblongata read Pons Varolli.
  ,,  284,  ,,    4, for apophysis read diaphysis.
  ,,  334, last line, for dental foramon read mental foramon.

found body parts II

The photographs that President George Bush
does not want the American public to see
show the flag-draped coffins containing
the bodies of American servicemen
and women - dying in Iraq at a
rate of between four
and six a day –

being returned to the US and to their families.
Aware of the power of these pictures
and their potential to inflict political
damage on Mr Bush as he
campaigns for re-election,
his chief political adviser,
Karl Rove, is desperate

that they should not be published.
Under a White House directive,
the press has not been
permitted to
photograph

the return of such
coffins for more than a year.
But last week 361 images of
military coffins being returned
to Dover air force base in Delaware
were released to an internet news site under

the Freedom of Information Act.
This week the Pentagon decided
it should not have provided
the pictures after all, and
barred further
releases.

Independent Newspaper April 24th 2004

Mustikh Ermhneia

1

Mars is up. I… No cloud. Such – red. I feel so
strange. Cannot tell. No wonder it’s too warm for
this time of year; perhaps oh 40 days no
rain at all. Corm & elder fatten. Yet SHED
is all the bird can see. It arcs a bluesheen,
spirals past maple, magnet fucked, adopts me.
List, quick now, jot lest this imports unforeseen.
Noah’s was first. Then Pyrex basin shard sea.
On TV Dastardly and Muttley sing
"Drop the pigeon, Drop the pigeon." Poltergeist
light bulb more than a pop - a Bloody Hell Thing.
At 4 a.m. the box self-switches on. Christ!
North’some railhead, you’re duty, daughter, sink.
I’m a cunt-need. Fix into its stink.

2

Blood; fore-get not this nuptial wedding-reel.
Hidden if tasted does become ap’-
parent. ‘N not just all jumbled but with truth appeal.
Fecund in chatter mouths. No quench but pretty where
Turville – “ It’s right past Stonor. No. the Stud.
No, actually, the Pony Club. Balloons
tied to the crossroads sign. There’ll be no flood-
lights down there ‘til the The Hound of Ulster’s on. ”
Feint Accenti, cheap red. “ I asked for white! ”
Teeth. How we may well kill our own children.
Cheers, my dear, (hate look). Cannibal spouse strike.
Spot our kids. Blink to drama group wiccan.
X-ray Monday. Happy families lay siege.
Layered. The world as stage. Agress Oblige.

3

Foraging. For snot. For tha’in-lay dirt,
where there is (in)finite drivel a snivel bight.
Black too. Scrapied. An under-nail-thing dirt.
Smut on TV. The world as reported requited.
Which box to watch? My back? Slapped, shoulder strapped?
Well travelled tongues forge innuendo grooves.
Windows lit into hearths that break unapt
for little lives – that want to leap from rooves
of mouths.
                          I press my tongue-tip against tstss yours:
Forage again. For memory. For spit.
Spit Spot!! not Mary Poppins but sex curs
es to cum your shirt is off I press my clit I'
m off and away where eyes            look right through
the many and straight ahead may love the            few

4

Sunday. How it commits to suicide
Saturday. How its church bells take their toll.
Now, how old we feel, how old fears take pride
of place: faces in their owned enfold-
ment. Spent also our tears, so easier
to read than other verses. Versions collide.
Our voices prise glass ceiling’d chamferred errs
and grace(s) – daily bea(s)ts in breasts’ reordered – hides.
But, ah, and that’s a big one. I. Or you. We.
Should be, perhaps, well, somewhere else. The end.
Or near to it. Not stuck/the middle. Standees
with days undealt, unknelt prayers to fend
for themselves. This was what was wrong. A bad start.
Sabbathed. Kiboshed. Each heart confesses chambers.

Sigheses

All trembling in my arms Aminta lay,
defending of the bliss I strove to take,
made a brittle thread that could be stretched
with fingers, raising my rapture
by her kind
delay.

Her force so charming was and weak,
the soft resistance did betray the grant,
while I pressed on the heaven
of my desires; her rising breasts
with nimbler motions panted;
her dying eyes ran off
a metal spoon
in drops,

assumed new fires.
Now to the loose thread:
height of languishment.
She grew, a limp, sticky ball that
                                 flattened
when removed from the water
and still her looks new charms put on –
a ball that held its shape and would not flatten.

Now a hard ball that held its shape
but was till pliable, the last mystery
of love she knew. We sighed,
and kissed: firm strands that could be stretched or
bent                                                            stiff.

I waked, and all was done,
that broke easily when removed.
Twas but a dream, yet by my heart
I knew, which still was panting,
part of it was true: syrup
changes from honey-coloured to light brown.

Oh how I strove the rest to have believed;
ashamed and angry to be Sugar undeceived!

winging

When the child was a child
it walked with its puddle
to be the sea.

When the child was a child,
it didn’t know linguistics in
Saussure. Often sat cross-
legged, with a cowlick
in its hair.

When the child was a child,
language was the time
for these questions:

Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin,
and where does
space end in
Hjelmslev?

Given the facts of ideolect
how can it be that the duplex structure I am,
didn’t exist before I came to be
semiological prospects?

When the child was a child,
it choked on the food system,
spinach, peas, rice pudding,
and on steamed cauliflower,
and eats all of those now,
and not just because
it had to.

When the child was a child,
it awoke once in the car,
the furniture system
a strange bed,
and now does

again and again.

Many people seem the origin
of various beautiful signifying systems.
It visualizes a clear image of Paradise with problems.
Cannot conceive of nothingness,
and shudders today
at the sign.

When the child was a child,
it played with the classification of enthusiasm,
and, now, has just as much excitement
but only when it concerns work.

When the child was a child,
it was enough form to eat apple,
and substance bread.
And so it is
even now.

When the child was the signified child,
berries filled its hand as only berries
do and signified fresh walnuts.

Its raw tongue sig-
nified on every mountain-
top longing for a higher mountain.

And that is still so.

It reached for cherries in topmost branches of signifiers,
with an elation it has today.
A shyness in the classification of strangers
the significant correlation.

It awaited first snow,
the arbitrary, the motivated.
And waits that way even now.

When the child was a child,
it threw a stick like a lance against value, a tree,
and it quivers the articulation.

The two axes of language:
als das Kind war, metaphor
and metonymy in
Jakobson war.

Als das Kind war,
semiological prospects war
wußte es nicht, daß es Kind war.

The syntagm als das Kind war,
syntagm and speech, and discontinuity war.

The communication test, the syntagmatic test,
the syntagmatic units,
the combinative
constraints
Kind war.

Identity and distance
spielte es mit Begeisterung.
Similarity and dissimilarity, oppositions,
binarism, neutralisation,
transgressions, meta-
language.

Notes: als das Kind Kind war,
wußte es nicht, daß es Kind war,
alles war ihm beseelt,
und alle Seelen
waren eins
conclusion.

Unsanctimony

Teethe divided by plaque,
air by nail scrape on board-pick, pick;
harmonics piss a crack on the basin.

A festoon of taste buds
lassoed by hair stuck in the mouth.
Flake scalps on eye edge.
Body where it should not have been, screaming, car-

eening shards of our past.
Fear not courage.
Though old, it is current.

Opinions, daring to pierce the goitre of maternity,
forever dismembering, moreover gutting and sever-

ing the sanctity he initially
bestowed upon
it.

His face, exsanguinated.
Acute: desire shall creep back, forgive.
But she knows lividity. A sad regrowth.

She must keep her hands
to herself. Not clean
up. Safeguard off-
spring. She smells

hell
    ahead.
Hears his sad intake.
Watches as he walks.

postpartumbellum

a new ark has been lowered
brimfilled with bloodied blubber n finger-
printless though carriers were angels’ arms
as I sift Its articles read to declare war grant letters of marque
and reprisal
and make rules concerning captures on land
and water strength which deposited was a dead yoke not living sac
yet for a woman of your age you have a perfect cervix
with little or
           no sign having birthed children
         who grew were blown
         shot puckered
                         to barbecue remains these creatures white wingéd untuck
spittled heads shoulders sheened
my slime their shine caul
my cunt blinks
as if no lid
lifted
as if no

                 revealed

reconciliation

to rest from
the tumults
and disturbance
of the world
I dream
I’m in bed and
with-daughter
she said my
breasts they
will always
be cut      open
like a can
it is coming
to the time
of scourging
to pictures
we all need
of the train
beamed around
the globe
of carnage
until they hang
until half-dead
their genitals
cut
off
and burned
in front of them
someone
alive, their bowels
and heart
removed they
are decapitated
and dismembered
of tuna
firefly shrouds
zither my flesh
shrouds abound
their body parts
publicly displayed
eaten by birds
as they de-
compose
I am in bed alive
a bird nests
in the crook
and it is coming
to the time
of piercing
a baby torn
to shreds
for desert places
favour the pursuit
of wisdom
yes we all
need rain
for the believing
someone we can
bleed on
and if you
want it, well
baby, you
can bleed on

lassitudes regrouted

she is having trouble with what are caryatids are
or no, slinging common bur-reed over her shoulder
its shadows not their leaf tips brown curls her fingers
where his sour was where too too hard water furs
alkaline his meants come and slight slurs
f’where past hurts. Past dangerously dark
harsh marauding curt asides turned granit-
eish will I be cast out now that I’m baptised
for I have been naughty she said like a child
but blissed and red where he’d kissed/lick’d
slips tongue slips of the tongue along
the sinkedge wipes thinking also sin-
king to domestic rots how houses
hold oh shit walls separate          and we keep polite
secrets get from under my feet, don’t just
be another kid yet historically it was always
men who chiselled who even now tell tool from leaf
and shines and no time to theologically spit damn crazy
small a wrist double-tendon click bets absolutely no balance
if there’s such as harridan males what would maiden
                                                   gargoyles grit
between their stony bulbous blubber-teeth but stealth
more plasticfrogfreebies seemingly than sophia-steeped; an easterly blows
and home drowned comments
greasy left-overs and mistaken bulrushes
flow lean her heart starts stone goes (best foot forward…
circuitry below par her boundary, personal or otherwise
uninstigated as if cold as if cold as if god mere marble
as if is the only in-the-know pitted
conspiring statues not statutes turn, giggle
not at all on her side their garlands
slide, not all but
only these
fall

9th

insurgencies repeats then views/clips
the Altar of Repose candles
but only to midnight
post-febrile sensitivity
kinaesthetic heaviness: bitsy eiderdown
finally this Good Friday come
around; holiday victuals not in; skin
saggy yet holding up
so many, too many gradations
April showers sun which triple-dries a bolus ground
until all bloods’ heat is levelled
and it is accomplished

titulus

(cut version)

God only knows what this notice provides.
I may not always use you when verifying
properly designed procedures to meet
requirements for the removal, segregation
and disposition of specified risk materials.

I may not always love your brain, skull, eyes,
trigeminal ganglia, spinal cord, vertebral
column and dorsal root ganglia. Though

life would still go on, believe me, without
tonsils and your distal ileum.
But as long as there are stars above
the establishment God has designed,
its monitoring, verification, record-keeping
and corrective actions still go on.

The world could show
evidence about the proof of its plans’ age,
sanitation and other supporting prerequisite programs,
but God only knows what I'd be without
vertebral columns which do not have
to be removed during each
slaughter.

However, procedures should be
put in place to ensure that
vertebral columns are
adequately identified
You never need doubt it.

I'll make you so sure about
inspection program personnel
able to verify proper executions
by reviewing dentition examination
or by conducting hands-on inspections
if you should ever leave.

When you perform individual
head inspections and observe visible
edible portions, the establishment
may recondition your entire head
by knife trimming. Though life would still go on,
believe me.

If the establishment does not
properly implement procedures
to remove, segregate, and dispose
without you, cleaning and sanitising
prior to maintaining daily records
sufficient to document
the known world -
God only knows.

God only knows what?
God only knows what I'd
make you so sure about:
excluding tail vertebrae,
the transverse processes
of the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae,
and the wings of the sacrum including reassessment
as appropriate to effectuate
what God knows.

The world knows.
The world God knows.

(uncut version)

God only knows what this notice provides.
I may not always use you when verifying
properly designed procedures to meet
requirements for the removal, segregation
and disposition of specified risk materials.

I may not always love your brain, skull, eyes,
trigeminal ganglia, spinal cord, vertebral
column and dorsal root ganglia. Though

life would still go on, believe me, without
tonsils and your distal ileum.
But as long as there are stars above
the establishment God has designed,
its monitoring, verification, record-keeping
and corrective actions still go on.

The world could show
evidence about the proof of its plans’ age,
sanitation and other supporting prerequisite programs,
but God only knows what I'd be without
vertebral columns which do not have
to be removed during each
slaughter.

However, procedures should be
put in place to ensure that
vertebral columns are
adequately identified
You never need doubt it.

I'll make you so sure about
inspection program personnel
able to verify proper executions
by reviewing dentition examination
or by conducting hands-on inspections
if you should ever leave.

When you perform individual
head inspections and observe visible
edible portions, the establishment
may reconcile our heads
by knife trimming. Though life would still go on,
believe me.

If the establishment does not
properly implement procedures
to remove, segregate, and dispose
without you, cleaning and sanitising
prior to maintaining daily records
sufficient to document
the known world -
God only knows.

God only knows what?
God only knows what I'd
make you so sure about:
excluding tail vertebrae,
the transverse processes
of the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae,
and the wings of the sacrum including reassessment
as appropriate to effectuate
what God knows.

God, I may not always love you, but as long
as there are stars
the world knows.
The world knows God knows.

what metaphor the pit

currently there’s a woman
in Rwanda dedusting skulls
her rags indistinguishable
from apron contryfolks’ femurs
tibias &cs &cs stacked
elsewhere but as far as
this tidy hole we call affluent,
society, ‘our’, there
are demarcations: what one
is supposed to include
and my body politic
better poetically
may be discussed
whether a more luxurious common
term than plateau for reaching orgasm
or geographical enough or indeed expendable
arms – metal, skinned, grasping, reclined, unskinned
missing à la Venus de Milo, rusted, forensic’d, iusticable
love some 800,000 intricacies nuanced
clarity hygienic language
gets us included
which deeds

getting lucky

so you fist my udder through its
corona braceletted charms
brass key which greens with use my opening youngers
me mother-of-pearl heart from rubbing
true grit to always come through
blue john womb purple an’ white banded
rugae wrath and Naboth ovula
abalone shell angel who overstands their regularity
therefore fire yet an annoyance
its kitsch clinks
milk you grab for but linked to rot a lock
simple bar and ring forgot we forgot gifts tarnish
slot a free link catches, scratches
blots how we would box the lot
wrap, peel paper crinkle drop to sheets we wet
by weep or precious exceptions
calf calf trawl calf arm up me I lick your wrist true
ruby born and you dare arch dream tungsten and then, then I sprawl a cave-need
(no obligatory sentimental lapis toy dolphin bow)
better smethered it would be some simple silver offertory pumped
cheaper by far flame iris a pinprick pupil
undilated shushed finger
tipped enough may enough slick fabergéd baiting
rub my little leprechaun love and we’ll rawlplug
mammary magic weight
weight fuck cupid - watch
the fountain goes pre-glow
you say you cow
you cow

post-modern pandora’s queasy turn

she cossets first the tangled bed wire
then leftover hair tourmaline yet mattressed
and on through decadent dried scars, severe,
sculpted, forming waves with each a nauseate
as if sincere at the time, thus not solitary
but compacted hence far too much to simply
surf and so stacks discarded sincerities
brutal attempts at recompense all those many
many times she’d tried but you said
in defence suddenly huge like a David – brilliantly sculpted
out of a thin thin block. Exact. Rebutted.
strange that how clever he is
artistic ’ologies in their own Tunbridge ware marquetry protection
precisely inlaid history dark exceptions against their lighter
shamless selves many moves towards a middle ground
lush skin scents counting as smaller, finer objets com-
pacted bejewelled alongside a wry smile
an ironic agreement as-seen-from-inside
matching fabrics domestically designed timetables
forthcoming and driving together to pre-arranged, relaxed, destinations
as if (another) purpose
as if (again) enjoyable
with written stuff jazz that was understood classical
that wasn’t
grotesque shouted Germanic/whining Italianate melodramatics anything Wagnerian
that in any case
was never going to end the stts and inhalations, which heralded audio dyslexia
which was of itself never taken seriously
but adhered to as yet another thing all artistically lovingly
gorgeously wrapped also the biggest ehm as if
as if a prayer
as if a tropism
and she could dare and fuck it and
chuck it all